New direction

Robert Rogers has had a very short honeymoon phase as the new executive director of the Lenoir County Boys and Girls Club, as he has had to figure out how to keep the club's programs going with a shrinking pool of money.

"What I'm trying to do is keep the programs that we have (and) make them more quality programs with no added funding," he said. "(We're) trying to do more with less, basically."

Rogers spent two years as the Lenoir County club's teen director before he became executive director earlier this month, but he has about a dozen years of experience working with Boys and Girls Clubs around the world.

"He brings a lot of experience that we didn't realize (he had) until we started talking to him," said Jim Bailey.

Bailey is secretary-treasurer for the Lenoir County Boys and Girls Club's board, and he volunteered as interim executive director for several months after long-serving Director Charlie Smith left in the spring.

"He is a man with a heart; he gives of his time," Bailey said of Rogers. "Even before he was named director, he would do extra things. For instance, he, on his own time, kept the gym open until 7 p.m. so that children that were involved in sports or other extracurricular activities could still go to the Boys and Girls Club."

Rogers, a former member of the U.S. military and civilian employee of the Defense Department, said his Boys and Girls Club career began while working with the USO in Japan in 1996.

He was using an on-base health club one day when he caught two boys trying to break into his locker. The encounter made him think about the men who had mentored him growing up, and how it was time for him to step up for a new generation of boys.

"I saw myself in those kids and I saw myself as those adults that helped me," Rogers said. "It was time for me to switch roles."

He took a job with the Boys and Girls Club on that same base - the Department of Defense funds the organization on military bases throughout the world - and was transferred to a base in Germany three years later, where he also worked with the Boys and Girls Club.

After three years in Germany, Rogers and his wife moved to La Grange. She was in the Air Force at the time and assigned to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and he was assigned to the Boys and Girls Club at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station.

Rogers spent the next four years with Cherry Point's club. He also served as a substitute teacher in the Lenoir County schools and opened a Christian bookstore with his wife.

"I know most of the kids that come here from the school system," he said. "I think the No. 1 issue we have is childhood poverty and it's the root of a lot of the other issues (facing children)."

Rogers' duties as executive director include managing about 450 child members between the ages of six and 18, supervising eight full-time and part-time staffers plus two volunteers, recruiting board members, community outreach and fundraising.

"What I'm trying to do is make our programs work more efficiently to make it easy on the kids, parents and staff members," he said.

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.